The problem I have is that the questions are thrown out there and seem intended (to me, at least) to goad responses towards tax policy, which of course can only end in a political quagmire with barely four weeks to go before election day.

To your OP, you don't specify which taxes you're talking about. Personally, I don't think personal income taxes (which seems to be where you're headed) play any role whatsoever in a business' willingness to hire. Walmart doesn't care whether their employees are paying 1% or 80% on their income, they only care whether or not their customers have money to spend. Sure, they'd appreciate lower personal rates as it puts more money in customers' pockets, but it doesn't directly affect their cash flows.

Likewise, I've always felt the idea of corporate tax rates affecting willingness to reinvest to be something of a red herring as well. Businesses will whine and moan about paying anything at all (and let's be honest... if the idea of "corporate personhood" were taken its logical conclusion, they they should be paying personal income tax rates rather than corporate tax rates), but their decisions on whether to expand, contract, or just play wait-and-see really comes down to whether or not expansion will be ROI-positive, or if shrinking will improve margins in the remaining areas. If anything, higher taxes might encourage expansion, since sitting on a taxable cash pile rather than reinvesting or paying dividends will honk off shareholders.

Personally, I don't think personal income taxes (which seems to be where you're headed) play any role whatsoever in a business' willingness to hire. Walmart doesn't care whether their employees are paying 1% or 80% on their income, they only care whether or not their customers have money to spend.

Hummmmm... where to start...

OK, if we stipulate that the employer needs to pay employees enough to eat we have a baseline. The higher the personal income taxes the higher that baseline has to be in order for the employee to have enough left over after taxes to eat.

So in a place like NYC where employees pay personal income tax to the Federal, State & City government the employee's wages must be higher for the employee to eat.

Higher wages means greater expense which means higher prices. If (as in your example) Walmart employees are giving up 80% of their pay in taxes then Walmart must pay higher wages for the employee to be able to afford to eat after losing 80% to the taxman.

Hiring another employee would simply double the burden.

There's another aspect to this: the underground economy. If an employee is willing to work off the books both parties benefit financially.

Also, the customer who's lost 80% of his or her wages to taxes has that much less to spend which does effect their spending which does effect a businesses cash flow.

To your OP, you don't specify which taxes you're talking about. Personally, I don't think personal income taxes (which seems to be where you're headed) play any role whatsoever in a business' willingness to hire. Walmart doesn't care whether their employees are paying 1% or 80% on their income, they only care whether or not their customers have money to spend. Sure, they'd appreciate lower personal rates as it puts more money in customers' pockets, but it doesn't directly affect their cash flows.

Well, there is plenty of empirical evidence that high personal income taxes reduce economic growth. Whether it reduces a business' willingness to hire is another story.

I'm looking at this as "It doesn't matter to the business what they pay their employees, only what their customers can afford." Now, as you properly point out, if someone is paying 80% in taxes there isn't a whole lot left over, but wages must rise to meet workers' needs, then prices come up since workers-turned-customers have more money, putting more money in company vaults, which in turn leads to expansion, dividends, and (according to supply-siders) raises/bonuses. NYC is a perfect example of this... everything is more expensive there: food, transit, housing, etc. But wages are higher as well. You get paid more for the same job in NYC than you do in, say, Billings, MT. If you drop taxes from a high level to a lower one, you only temporarily goose the consumers, as it doesn't take long before the bean counters tell the board "Hey, people are getting to keep twice as money they used to, so we can cut back on salaries without actually hurting their financial situation!" Wages begin to stagnate or even drop, until finally an unhappy equilibrium between "this job sucks, I quit" and "I'm disgruntled, but the alternatives aren't any better" is found.

If you drop taxes from a high level to a lower one, you only temporarily goose the consumers, as it doesn't take long before the bean counters tell the board "Hey, people are getting to keep twice as money they used to, so we can cut back on salaries without actually hurting their financial situation!"